The Nymar nodded, accidentally bumped his head against the barrel of Cole’s gun and stammered, “Y-Yes. I understand.”
“How do we reach Cobb38?”
The Nymar started rattling off Internet addresses and passwords. Prophet sat at the keyboard until Cole gave him the okay before touching so much as one smooth plastic square. It turned out that the Nymar communication network operated through a ring of websites and e-mail accounts that were only connected by a few members who passed information from source to source. Once Cole had committed some of the details to memory, he wanted to try to get a member of the inner ring of the network to send something to him. Every e-mail came with tags and source codes that could point him in the right direction when looking for the source, and hopefully a flesh-and-blood Cobb38. With enough time he knew he might even be able to send something to Cobb that would truly mess up his day, as well as his entire system. That dream was quashed when Rico shouted at him from his post at the doorway.
“Looks like Gunari is pushing them toward us!”
“Pull up another e-mail, Walter,” Cole said quickly. “One of the ones addressed to Cobb’s whole system. Add my e-mail address to the list of senders and send out a generic reply so it’s placed into the circulation. Drina, you and Rico buy us a minute and then head back out.”
“What about Paige?” Rico asked.
“Me, her, and Walter will stay here to wrap this up. Just go!”
Either Rico was surprised by the forceful tone in Cole’s voice or he truly did respect him more as a partner, because the big man nodded once and motioned for Drina to help him carry out the orders they’d been given.
“Done,” Prophet said as he tapped the last key.
Cole didn’t need to do much more than shift his eyes to get a look at Paige. She stood in the middle of the room, between two cheap folding tables that looked like those professional wrestlers used as landing pads when jumping from the top ropes. Apart from the computer setup and tables, there wasn’t much of anything else within the room. Paige met his glance with an intensity that made it seem they were secluded from the rest of the world. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the good kind of intensity, and it sure as hell wasn’t a good kind of seclusion.
“What do you want to do from here?” he asked.
“You seem to be doing pretty well,” Paige replied. “I’ll follow your lead.”
“Prophet, take this.”
The bounty hunter stood up and had to act fast in order to catch the Nymar prisoner that was shoved toward him. Old instincts combined with job skills nicely enough for him to take control of the prisoner by twisting one arm behind the Nymar’s back and shoving him face first against the computer desk. “What should I do with him?”
“Find out whatever you or your boss needs to know about these Denver assholes,” Cole said. “Right after you find out where the cops are that’re being set up for a fall. If he acts like he doesn’t know about any cops, kill him.” Shifting to look down at the squirming Nymar, he added, “Use those antidote rounds I gave you. They should do the trick.”
“What’s next, Cole?” Paige asked.
Releasing the .45′s slide so he could safely holster the pistol, he snapped it back into the holster on his belt and drew the spear from where it had been strapped to his back. “Next, you tell me who the fuck you are, because you’re sure as hell not my partner.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
An angry twitch drifted across Paige’s face as she backed away. Although the fierceness in her eyes seemed like the woman Cole knew, their color was off by a few shades of brown and they were just a little too vivid to be natural. They shifted to a more sedated hue as she said, “Of course. You have feelings for this one. That would explain the inconsistencies.”
“Who are you?” Cole demanded.
Instead of the muted crackle of broken bones or the internal ripping of muscle and sinew that went along with other shapeshifters’ transformation, Paige’s change sounded more like a breath pulled in through a constricted throat. Familiar features dissolved and her skin pressed in around a narrowing frame. Even as her body’s curves faded like a dream and her clothes turned into rags, her eyes remained the same.
The figure that stood in front of Cole was vaguely familiar to him. Thinking back to the drive from where they’d met up with the Amriany, he realized it was the figure he’d first mistaken for Paige on the side of the road. Tightening his grip on the spear, he took comfort from the trickle of warm blood between his fingers. The bite of the thorns into his palms gave a much needed burst of adrenaline through his veins. “You’re a Full Blood?”
“My name is Kawosa and I am no Full Blood. No more than a king is merely a citizen.”
“Why can’t you guys just talk like everyone else?”
“And why can’t humans ever ask the first question on their minds without trying to dress it up with a lot of chatter and threatening gestures?”
“Where’s Paige?”
“Where did you last see her?”
“You must have known what she looked like or you wouldn’t have been able to change into her. It’s gotta be something like that, right?”
More gunshots ripped through the building, followed by Amriany voices calling back and forth. Somewhere within the building, doors were thrown open and different voices were added to the mix. Cole’s earpiece chirped once and Rico’s voice followed.
“This place is crawlin’ with those goddamn striped bloodsuckers. Someone else is coming and my money’s on them bein’ cops. What the hell happened, Paige? Didn’t you call these guys off?”
Kawosa’s eyes rolled around in their sockets as if he was following a pattern of lights dancing in front of his eyes. After they settled in the direction of his right ear, he pulled the device out, tossed the earpiece to the floor and smashed it under his foot as if it was a tick that had been lodged in his flesh.
Looking at his own hands, just to make sure the weapon was still in them, Cole said, “You’re a shapeshifter, so I know this weapon will hurt you. Tell me what happened to Paige.”
“I took her from your thoughts when you first laid eyes on me.”
“Shit. Another Mind Singer?”
“Oh, no. I can only read what lies on your surface, but that’s all I ever need. It’s rare your species ever uses much of anything deeper than that. Tell me, when did you know I wasn’t your Paige?”
“The moment you got in the car.”
“I doubt that very much.”
The expression on the shapeshifter’s face was so confident and so extremely arrogant that Cole wanted nothing more than to knock it off of him. With the firefight outside and no sign from the real Paige, he figured it couldn’t hurt to buy himself a few more seconds for reinforcements to arrive. “Her arm was wounded in Kansas City,” he said. “Yours wasn’t scarred. It wasn’t even stiff.”
Kawosa absently rubbed that arm. “And the eyes, right?” Despite the fact that Cole didn’t respond, Kawosa nodded serenely. “It’s always the eyes when it comes down to someone a human cares about. You’d think I would know that by now, wouldn’t you? The fact of the matter is that you care deeply for this woman. That’s why you envision her in such pristine condition.”
“Pristine, huh?” Cole chuckled. “You seriously need to do more research on someone before you try to mimic them.”
“And perhaps you should think harder about what you feel for her,” Kawosa said with a cruel, confident smile. “You may not have a lot of time left to enjoy each other. As for the Full Blood claim, I do share certain traits with them. Skinners have rarely been able to detect me, however. Your forefather Lancroft worked for years on end just to catch my scent. That itch in your hands probably came from them.” Kawosa nodded toward the back of the room in a corner near the computer desk.
Cole knew better than to turn around and look. If there was anything worth seeing, Prophet would have spoken up by now.
“Uhhh,” Prophet said. “You
better get over here.”
Heavy footsteps scraped against the floor, sounding like sandbags being dragged across the linoleum. The breaths drifting through the air were the low rasp of wind snagging upon ravaged throats. A pair of werewolves stalked across the room, leaving a juicy trail of saliva that fell from their mouths. They moved with a purpose that was nowhere to be found in any of the beasts that had ripped through Kansas City or the wild things that slept in filthy pits after tearing apart any man, woman, or child that crossed their path. They were bigger than Half Breeds and walked without lifting their paws fully from the floor. Their heads swung easily back and forth and their lips curled up to reveal a set of elongated fangs marked by two pairs of curved tusks sprouting from top and bottom jaws.
Watching the bulky creatures, Cole shifted his stance so neither they nor Kawosa were behind him. Unable to come up with a better guess, he asked, “Burkis? Is that you?”
The moment the werewolves got within striking distance of the computer desk, they snarled at Prophet, but shifted their eyes back to Kawosa before doing anything else.
“You have one chance for me to call them off,” Kawosa said. “Tell me all you know about the Skinners, how they communicate, and what else they’ve gleaned from Jonah Lancroft, and I’ll give you a chance to escape before I set these two loose. Make your decision now.”
Cole didn’t want to fight an unknown creature, but knew there was no possible way he would ever tell the shapeshifter a damn thing.
“Fine,” Kawosa said. “If you don’t talk, I know there are others here who will.”
“I hate mind readers,” Cole grunted as one of the bulkier Half Breeds came straight at him.
The other one lunged at Prophet. Until now he and the Nymar had been watching Kawosa and Cole without knowing how to insert themselves into the situation. When they finally saw a chance to do something, both of them sprang into motion. The Nymar lunged for the computer desk, reached beneath the cheap printer setup and hit a button that sent a piercing shriek through the room. A second too late to prevent the alarm from going off, Prophet grabbed the Nymar and shoved him toward the closest werewolf.
The Nymar was lifted off his feet and shaken from side to side when the werewolf’s tusks were driven up under his rib cage. It disemboweled the Nymar and then tossed him onto the computer desk so it could feast. Oily blood ran down its face as it opened its mouth to let out a howling snarl. Prophet fired his pistol at the creature the moment it set its sights on him.
Those shots echoed like a distant, bass-heavy stereo in Cole’s ears as he planted his feet and willed his spear to shift into something that would hit the other creature before it could get to him. Although the metallic spearhead was too rigid to change shape, the rest of the weapon responded to Cole’s mental command without hesitation. It was still shifting when he drove the spear into the Half Breed’s chest using a motion similar to digging a hole with a shovel. The gleaming spearhead, infused with pieces of the Blood Blade, ripped through the Half Breed’s upper body even easier than bullets from Prophet’s gun. All it took from there was an exertion of muscle for Cole to divert the Half Breed’s glistening fangs away from him and toward the third shapeshifter in the room.
Kawosa dropped to all fours. By the time his hands touched the floor, they were neither hands nor paws. He was a being completely different than anything Cole had seen thus far and shifted from one form to another with as much effort as someone else might use to change an open hand into a fist. Kawosa’s animal form was lean and wiry. Pointed ears rested high upon his head to point straight up at the ceiling. His snout was long and gnarled, filled with unevenly spaced fangs that angled down and back like teeth found on a hacksaw blade. As the Half Breed sailed over him, Kawosa kept his smoky gray eyes fixed upon Cole.
Suddenly, Cole wanted to set his spear down and have a quiet chat with the thing staring up at him.
If not for all the previous beings that had tried to manipulate his thoughts, he might have done just that. But with the Mind Singer’s presence still fresh in his memory, he wasn’t about to roll over so easily for another trickster. It took every bit of his willpower to lower his spear, pretending to behave like a good little zombie. When Kawosa took a less defensive stance, Cole slashed the forked end of the spear across his eyes. The shapeshifter recoiled to avoid getting his face torn off, but the weapon’s points snagged in the clothes that hung off his spindly frame.
Cole had barely even noticed Kawosa was still wearing clothes. The creature’s fur had a coarse, greasy texture that allowed it to lay flat against his body in a manner very similar to the rags he wore. When Cole pulled the spear free, he ripped a section of the fabric, allowing something to come loose and hit the floor. It was the cell phone Kawosa had taken after hitching a ride with the Skinners. Also, the phone was ringing.
Prophet fired his remaining bullets at the werewolf in front of him. Even after its skull was busted open like a piñata to spill its gory candies all over the floor, its legs still drove it forward. After ejecting his magazine with a quick snap of a lever and downward motion of his hand, he dug a fresh one from his pocket, reloaded and chambered a round so he could empty half of it into the stubborn creature. Whatever hold Kawosa had, it was powerful enough to keep the creature plodding forward no matter how badly it wanted to use its speed to choose another angle. At such close range, Prophet was able to put his next several rounds into the wet pulpy matter within the creature’s head.
Cole’s Half Breed was having trouble getting back to its feet. After hitting the floor and skidding to turn itself around, a good portion of its blood and some even more vital pieces had spilled out through the opening made by the specially modified spear. The werewolf lifted its head, let out a bellowing roar and leapt at Cole. He braced to defend himself, but the creature didn’t even manage to get off the ground before its strength gave out and its body hit the floor with a wet thump. Both front legs were trapped beneath its opened chest, which scraped against the floor.
Kawosa flowed back into a mostly human form and regarded the eviscerated Half Breed with morbid curiosity. “Such simple creatures,” he said. The moment he averted his eyes from it, the Half Breed let out a pained whine and gave up the ghost. “They have evolved into such useful tools.”
Keeping his spear in front of him, Cole inched his way toward the ringing cell phone. By the time he stretched a leg out to kick it toward him, it stopped ringing. It only took a moment for him to scoop up the phone, but it felt like hours before he was able to regain a solid grip on his weapon. “You’re working with the Nymar?”
“No more than I work with any deceiver,” Kawosa replied.
“What’s that supposed to mean? Who the hell are you?”
“I am smoke and mirrors. I am the encouraging hand that prods a child to tell his first lie. Some have written legends about me, but the rest prefer to worship my gifts in secret so their supposed loved ones will not know what untruths are about to be cast at them.”
Tapping his earpiece, Cole said, “Rico, I’ve got some nut job here who was passing himself off as Paige. Says his name’s Kawosa. That ring any bells?”
The gunfire that crackled through the digital connection simultaneously echoed through another section of the building. “Little busy here! You finished dicking around with the computer so you can help us with the real work?”
“How many Nymar are left?”
“Oh, you want me to count? Let’s see …” The gunfire erupting from that side of the building intensified and was still blasting away when the earpiece chirped again. “Still a fucking lot of them! Get over here!”
When Cole looked back to Kawosa, he found the skinny figure reaching out to touch the metallic spearhead with a set of sticklike fingers. “Where did you come from?” Cole asked. “And give me the short version before I drop you and call it a day.”
Kawosa raised an eyebrow that looked more like something hastily glued to his face before he shifted into ano
ther form with enough speed to make his bones snap. Every inch of his flesh was pulled and stretched. His muscles tore and squashed in on themselves. His entire structure crumpled into something else in less time than it took Cole’s heart to beat. When he dropped down to all four of his newly reformed legs, Kawosa was covered in dark fur and brandishing teeth that looked strong enough to chew through the side of an Abrams tank.
The creature wasn’t quite Full Blood and was definitely not a Half Breed. Cole might have put his money on a Mongrel, if not for what his scars were telling him. He didn’t have to think long, however, before remembering where he’d seen that dark, snarling monster before.
When he and Paige had faced Lancroft for the final time in the dungeon beneath that Philadelphia house, he’d caught a glimpse of Kawosa in his present form. Every instinct in Cole’s body had told him to stay away from that cage and be thankful that Jonah Lancroft knew how to keep those bars from breaking. When he’d seen the empty cage during his last visit to the Lancroft house, Cole had wanted to forget about what had been set loose. Somehow, after this simple introduction, the situation had the potential to be much worse than he’d feared.
“Tell me you’re afraid, Skinner,” Kawosa snarled through a mouth that shifted just enough to form the words. “And don’t lie to me. I’ll know.”
Cole used every bit of training Paige had given him. He watched Kawosa’s movements, from the subtle shift of his weight, all the way down to the bob of his head. When the moment was right, he feinted with a quick stab to Kawosa’s face and then followed up as soon as the shapeshifter moved to avoid the blow. Dropping to one knee, Cole swung his spear out and around in a wide arc that caught three of Ka-wosa’s legs. Although he was going for a simple takedown, the thorns in the weapon tore away the shapeshifter’s flesh as he fell heavily onto his side. The creature had barely hit the floor when Cole drove the metal-encrusted spearhead into Kawosa’s chest. He twisted the weapon and pulled it back out as his phone started to ring.
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